every time i try to download something a window pops up telling me limewire has an internal error. is there anyhting i can do to fix this? any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try deleting your preferences folder when LW's closed. See points 2 & 3 here
Fixes for LimeWire
This will kill your settings within tools > options, you'll have to go back through options & reset things afterwards

If that doesn't help, remove your old Java version & reinstall using the offline installer (point 1 within the link).